{"id":1163,"date":"2011-02-04T23:37:48","date_gmt":"2011-02-04T23:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/?p=1163"},"modified":"2011-02-17T09:40:57","modified_gmt":"2011-02-17T09:40:57","slug":"adieu-le-chassaing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/adieu-le-chassaing\/","title":{"rendered":"February 4th 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\"\"<\/a>n France.\u00a0 A week of house clearing.\u00a0 \u2018Clearing\u2019, whatever that is in French.\u00a0 My dictionary tells me it\u2019s debarasse, but today I wanted to put an advert in the supermarket telling the French at large that there was a house clearance on.\u00a0 The word Clearance <\/em> doesn\u2019t seem to exist.\u00a0 That is I wanted to say maison debrarrassement, but \u2018debarrassement\u2019 wasn\u2019t in my dictionary.\u00a0 And I\u2019ve no internet so I couldn\u2019t check.\u00a0 Debarrass also means \u2018chuck out\u2019 or \u2018get rid of\u2019, and I didn\u2019t want people to think that I was getting rid of my French belongings.\u00a0 Although I suppose that is what I\u2019m doing here.<\/p>\n

Getting rid of France.<\/p>\n

Adieu.<\/p>\n

I suppose \u2018adieu la France\u2019 would have been quite an interesting thing to put on a card advert in the supermarket.\u00a0 I might have got a load of responses from the French equivalent of the Samaritans \u2013 don\u2019t do\u00a0 it Richard \u2013 if you\u2019re feeling that bad we\u2019ll buy the stuff off you \u2013 hell we\u2019ll organise a charity around you to stop you throwing yourself off the Beaulieu Bridge.<\/p>\n

But instead I put \u2018je debarasse ma Maison !\u201d at the head of the advert.\u00a0 In retrospect I maybe shouldn\u2019t have added the exclamation mark, but I couldn\u2019t resist it!\u00a0 I am getting rid of my house!\u00a0 That\u2019s what I think it translates as, although I was trying for something a little less tragic.\u00a0 I did go on to briefly list the stuff that is available, but I don\u2019t hold out much hope for the advert.\u00a0 It\u2019s competing with professional French adverts in an obscure part of Intermarche, but it will be interesting to see how French underground marketing works.\u00a0 Hopefully someone will think \u2018 mmmm, a badly worded postcard in a supermarket \u2013 I bet he has really good furniture for sale\u2019.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Friday night and I\u2019m sitting in my home.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got the heating on (it works), I\u2019ve got a good fire going (I can cut wood), I\u2019ve just eaten (combination of French frozen food and legumes anglaise), I\u2019ve had something to drink,\u00a0 and I\u2019ve got the fantastically pop French radio on RFM \u2013 La Meilleur de la Music.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a full day.\u00a0 And I thought I was going to take it easy.\u00a0 But I suppose I took it full-on in an easy sort of way.\u00a0 Which is how every day should be filled.<\/p>\n

I had a good 10 hours sleep to make up for the 5 hours I had in two stages yesterday.\u00a0 But I was up & breakfasted by 9.30am so I could take some time to plan the day and then go with the plan.\u00a0 I went to the supermarket to buy food that would last the next 4 days.\u00a0 Crap food \u2013 quick food, snacks, booze, and a couple of real things that meant that I could avoid the supermarket for the rest of the week.\u00a0 I put my for sale card on the board while no one was watching, then went to the estate agent to see if things were still going smoothly with the sale.<\/p>\n

You see, days when things go smoothly are fine indeed, and I find myself at the end of one and so things are fine indeed.\u00a0\u00a0 I spoke to the ever-mumbly Jamie, who continues to disappoint in the area of customer satisfaction, despite my efforts.\u00a0 Sorry Jamie, I can\u2019t understand you and you have no charm \u2013 no wonder the French estate agentry is struggling at the moment.\u00a0 He is the only estate agent I have met where you have to make all the conversation. \u00a0\u00a0Anyway he was good enough to mumble that everything was going fine with the sale and mmmm vvvvvv thhhhhh rrr.\u00a0\u00a0 But he did organise me a meeting with the Notaire to give them power of attorney.\u00a0\u00a0 And said that he might know someone who\u2019d be interested in my furniture \u2013 a Monsiuer Mmvvthrr I think.<\/p>\n

I started packing things that weren\u2019t lying around.\u00a0 Things in drawers and cupboards that I thought I\u2019d never need.\u00a0 I\u2019ll never need them, but I put them in boxes unmarked in categories like \u2018take this\u2019 and \u2018 throw this\u2019 and \u2018maybe take this\u2019 and perhaps thro this\u2019.\u00a0 Maybe I\u2019ll take them all, but I doubt it.\u00a0 Things don\u2019t seem so important when you don\u2019t need them.\u00a0 But I might need them in the future and therefore they might become important.<\/p>\n

How am I going to get my 3 metre totem pole rescued from the Dordogne in the van? I\u2019ve got one small vansworth of house to take\u00a0 away with me and something\u2019s got to give.\u00a0 An artefact, a furniture, an electrical item?\u00a0\u00a0 Probably most of it.\u00a0\u00a0 And all of it holds a memory.\u00a0 Perhaps that\u2019s what I\u2019m concerned about.\u00a0 That I\u2019m going to throw away the wrong memories, and take a van load of horrors back with me to England.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m here alone this week, but I\u2019m in the house, and it\u2019s the house that I\u2019ve looked after for the past seven years or so.\u00a0 It hasn\u2019t been a home \u2013 \u2018cept once for a 3 months period \u2013 but it\u2019s been a refuge for me.\u00a0 A place to come to refuge all that is elsewhere.\u00a0\u00a0 Je suis \u00a0bien refug\u00e9e ici.\u00a0\u00a0 I hope I understand this when I read it back because I like that the house has enabled me to feel that.<\/p>\n

Even in the middle of winter, now when the trees are bare and the land is brown and grey and colourless.\u00a0 The stillness and tranquillity shines through the fog and drizzle, and I remember the summers.\u00a0\u00a0 Always over the rainbow.\u00a0 Very often hot and sunny and full of friends and fun and frolics and other f words, and peace and picnics and other p words, and swimming and sunbathing and singing and other s words, and music, and meditation, and other m words, and boules and waterfalls and castles, and wine, and sun, and thunderstorms, and cheese and views, and tranquillity and other letters of the alphabet known or unknown.<\/p>\n

Of course I haven\u2019t had any bad times here.\u00a0 Even with the badder times in England such that they were don\u2019t really compare.\u00a0 Perhaps the mildly difficult compared to the happy.\u00a0 The only mildly difficult here has been the rats really.\u00a0 And they kept themselves to themselves and weren\u2019t to know that I didn\u2019t like them here and so I had to trick them that the nice corn was heavily poisoned and would kill them in a frenzy of orgiastic pain until the inevitable death of the colony ensued.\u00a0\u00a0 That was mildly difficult keeping it from the guests.<\/p>\n

I went to the Notaire at 1530, which is how they like to do their times out here.\u00a0 The Notaire was in an unfamiliar ville but I found it from the memory of the map Jamie had gvn me and the X that marked the spot at the end of a cul-de-sac.\u00a0 It was classic sting operation.\u00a0\u00a0 In amongst bungalows the nice lady met me to allow me to sign over my legal rights to her for the purposes of the house sale.\u00a0\u00a0 Now I understand how it works.\u00a0 The estate agent pretends to make a sale to someone so that a friend can pretend to be a notaire and is encouraged to be a power of attorney so that she can sign something much more significant and everyone in the scheme becomes richer beyond their wildest dreams.<\/p>\n

It was an efficient operation.\u00a0 I liked her. She couldn\u2019t speak any English but she had impeccable dress and an enchanting perfume.\u00a0 I signed everything she asked of me.\u00a0 It meant I wouldn\u2019t have to come over again to sign anything for myself \u2013 her hand had become mine for the purposes of this transaction.\u00a0 I was entrusting my life to her in this aspect.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure her unremarkable house in amongst the bungalows weren\u2019t there last year.\u00a0 It just seemed to be her home.\u00a0 Oh well, I need to debarrasse my house this week so I suppose I shouldn\u2019t fret.\u00a0 I looked her in the eye and I think she\u2019s human.\u00a0 The Notaire is one of me!<\/p>\n

I parked the van in the town square because there was a rumour of free WiFi being leaked from one of the hotels.\u00a0 Such a rewarding moment when you find it.\u00a0 It meant I could use my phone to send and receive email and do Internetty-type things.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019ve clearly not been in France long enough yet to appreciate that I don\u2019t need my daily dose of MobileWebChatTweetPornPopupTubebay, but at the moment it\u2019s the only link to outside world I\u2019ve got and so it\u2019s a comfort of sorts.\u00a0 But there was nothing of significance in that Web World of Wonder, and I realise it\u2019s not an essential thing to me or the Earth as a whole.\u00a0 Here, I feel beyond all that.\u00a0 I just want to chat to my wife on occasions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>So I got back home and Jamie had rung to say that some ppl were interestd in my frntre.\u00a0 They were due round NOW, so I didn\u2019t have time to do anything except pour myself a beer and stare out the window.\u00a0 I did both in equal measure.<\/p>\n

Except when the beer became three.\u00a0\u00a0 Only then did they turn up.\u00a0 In two huge cars, like Apprentice<\/em> contestants but without the film crews, fortunately.<\/p>\n

I gave them a quick tour of the furniture delights that could become features in their own home if only they looked beyond the Mexicanish naffness that was nevertheless perfectly respectable solid pine furniture.<\/p>\n

I gave them my number.\u00a0\u00a0 They will call me.<\/p>\n

Now I sit in the squalid comfortableness that is the large yellow sofa that Jenny and I bought in a furniture shop in Hove.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s done quite a journey this sofa, but not more than Jenny\u2019s done I suppose.\u00a0\u00a0 The sofa hasn\u2019t had to venture into the metaphysical like Jenny has, but they both at one time had to endure the A20 on their way down to Sioniac.<\/p>\n

So I shed a tear tonight.\u00a0 I know now that this week will be the last time I see the house, the neighbours, the town, the region . . .etc.\u00a0\u00a0 And beyond all the sofarial thoughts of Jenny I contemplate all that could have been and all those possibilities that could have existed were the dials set a little bit differently.\u00a0 Because we bought the house together as a together decision that was possibly more mine than both because she was just happy that I was just happy and it didn\u2019t really matter if\u00a0 she was just tagging along because all was just a wave of happiness \u2026\u00a0 .. ..etc<\/p>\n

Well you know the sort of thing,<\/p>\n

So the house has been very adaptable to everything I threw at it.\u00a0\u00a0 Holidays, renovation, partying, festivals, summers, winters, and other seasons.\u00a0 A lot of different people types have passed by this way and I don\u2019t know anyone that complained.<\/p>\n

Tonight I listen to the radio.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s too obtrusive, but I have it on because I have no other access to the outside world.\u00a0 Perhaps there\u2019s been a revolution somewhere and the world is healing,\u00a0 They would announce it in French and I would think they were advertising toothpaste or tampons, and I wouldn\u2019t know whether to rejoice or to duck.\u00a0 But I figure that all the time they play the FunkyTown and BoogieWonderland and stuff like that I\u2019m safe.\u00a0 Somewhere my wife is safe in Germanland, and I\u2019m happy and she\u2019s happy and we know we\u2019re together really even though we can do everything except touch and smell.\u00a0 Oh and taste, if we\u2019re to allow all the senses.\u00a0 Let\u2019s not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In France.\u00a0 A week of house clearing.\u00a0 \u2018Clearing\u2019, whatever that is in French.\u00a0 My dictionary tells me it\u2019s debarasse, but today I wanted to put an advert in the supermarket telling the French at large that there was a house clearance on.\u00a0 The word Clearance doesn\u2019t seem to exist.\u00a0 That is I wanted to say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adieu-le-chassaing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1163"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1169,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1163\/revisions\/1169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splunge.co.uk\/richnilk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}